Final answer:
Leo Tolstoy was born into an aristocratic family and was a part of the Russian intelligentsia, which faced harsh consequences for intellectual work during oppressive Tsarist rule.
Step-by-step explanation:
Yes, Leo Tolstoy did come from an aristocratic background. The Russian novelist and thinker was a member of the Russian intelligentsia, a small class of educated nobles. This group began modern Russian literature and often faced severe consequences for their intellectual pursuits, including arrest and exile, under the oppressive Tsarist regime. Tolstoy, among peers like Turgenev, Dostoevsky, and Chekhov, contributed thematic explorations of both political issues and a quest to understand the Russian "soul" through their work. Although Tolstoy's insights in works such as War and Peace suggest that he valued the role of the average person in history, his origins were indeed in the upper echelons of Russian society, deeply scrutinizing the fabric of the human experience irrespective of class distinction.